Dialogue panel chief incites thugs against Oshiomhole

The national dialogue roadshow went awry yesterday in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

A meeting of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue in the Southsouth zone ended in a fiasco at the Imaguero Hall. The delegates left after comments by Governor Adams Oshiomhole caused an uproar.

The hall was virtually empty by the time some ethnic groups and individuals were presenting their memoranda.

The meeting that began at about 2pm ended at 4:30pm after committee Chairman Femi Okunrounmu declared that its members’ lives were not safe in Edo.

The Isoko, Urhobo, Itsekiri and Bini had presented their stand before the fracas.

It was as if some people were hired to disrupt the event when somebody from the audience interupted Oshiomhole a few minutes into his speech.

The voice said” “Two minutes”. “I will do more than that,” Oshiomhole replied.

The governor went on: “I want to make my own comments. They are my views and not the views of Edo State. It is not the view of any particular ethnic nationality. I think as a Nigerian we all have stake in this country and we have a duty to lay a solid foundation for the future of this country. I have a duty to be honest and truthful on the views and position that I canvass. My views are different. I asked the question, why are we having a national conference?”

“I believe that anyone who convenes a meeting must be clear why he convened a meeting. I have the opportunity to travel far and wide. You don’t assemble people and then ask them, what do we talk?. Whoever wishes to convene a meeting must be clear on what the issues are. When you have stated why the meeting was convened, you can then ask what should be added or deleted. You have hundreds of agenda. When I was the NLC, a former president convened a national conference and up till now…

Another interruption. Oshiomhole said: “You cannot shout me down. I know some persons were hired to be here.”

He continued: “People from various states converged, money was spent and in the end I can’t remember what came out of that conference. It is a valid point to make that we failed before, we can make amend but it is important we learn from our history. I will be surprised if anything changes. As a leader, I have no business to mislead anyone. This conference will not be different from any previous conference.”

Some ethnic nationalities, mainly from Bayelsa and Delta states, were accused of joining to shout down the governor.

A member of the committee, Col. Tony Nyiam, stood up and made some unprintable remarks about Oshiomhole which led to a near free for all on the high table.

Nyiam stood up, banging the table and screaming: “No!”, “no!”, “no”. The ex-soldier was restrained by other members of the committee who appeared shocked at his behaviour.

The committee members hurriedly left after thugs invaded the hall.

The governor was still making his contribution when Nyiam started screaming for him to sit down. He was then joined in by the thugs who disrupted the proceedings and many scampered for safety as a result of the unruliness of the committee member and the thugs.

The governor, who insisted on concluding his remarks, yielded the floor to the thugs, who were getting violent.

The National Anthem was hurriedly played as the governor took his exit.

In a statement last night, the dialogue panel condemned the “unruly conduct” of one of its members for joining the crowd to heckle the governor.

At a visit to him in his office by members of the committee led by Senator Femi Okurounmu either Oshiomhole said he had no faith in the process.

He said: “All I owe Nigeria now is to speak my mind. It could be error of my head, but certainly not of my heart. As much as I wish you well, I just want to say that I have no faith in this process and I do not think it was necessary at all.”

The governor added: “I am unable to find any basis to give me some illusion that this exercise will be different from the others.

He lamented that 53 years after independence, Nigerians still prefer to look at themselves from their ethnic origin rather than being Nigerians. “For me, I am just a Nigerian,” Oshiomhole said.

Oshiomhole said: “I do not think that more than 100 years when we have set aside billions of naira to celebrate our centenary the fact of our amalgamation of the North and Southern Nigeria, and we have lived together as one country for over a 100 years, and we have gone through independence, we have been free for 53 years and we are coming back to ask the question, how could we be there?

“I think Nigeria needs to address very serious issues. When I see eminent Nigerians discussing this issue, I am sure they know that Nigeria’s problem is not this politics of sharing, which the national dialogue is all about; who is getting what, who has this natural endowment, who should do this or not do this. For me, this is the act of perfecting poverty.

“The real challenge is getting Nigeria back to production. The real challenge is creating industrial base and this cannot be resolved through conferences. We have moved from parliamentary system in our own wisdom to the presidential system. We have test-run it and it was aborted by the military and it has re-incarnated in the present form,” he said, adding:

“Nigeria does need a serious reflection about how to return to those core values that made Nigeria work before. Those healthy competition between the governments, visit the whole question of attitude and unless that changes, I do not see how any dialogue can work”, he said.

The Governor said: “I was discussing with somebody last week and he noted that this is the eleventh conference and I ask what ten conferences could not do, how would the eleventh one do it? Why do we think we can continue doing the same thing the same old way and think that this time the outcome would be different?”

The Governor said nobody convenes a meeting without stating the agenda and asking others to draw up the agenda for that meeting. “From conception we know we want to talk, but we do not know what we want to talk about.”

Okurounmu said the committee was in Benin as part of its tour of the six geopolitical zones to get their input into the content of the agenda, the duration, choice of delegation and legal framework of the proposed dialogue.

Okunroumu expressed happiness over the impressive turnout by Nigerians at the different venues of its sittings.

“Nigerians have accepted the need to have this conference. We have been to four centres Minna, Akure, Jos and Calabar, and the turnout has been impressive and overwhelming.

“In all the centres, Nigerians came from the rural areas, even from the remotest villages to make presentations to us and there are “no-go areas at all.

“We are to listen to all Nigerians and I am happy that the turnout has been encouraging to the extent that we requested for bigger halls,’’ he said.

The chairman noted that “we have been listening to different groups and views, but no single group who threatens to dismember Nigeria has come before us.

“Nigerians all over the world are entitled to submit their views, but they must not be in the committee to air their views.

They have our e-mail address. “Let them submit their memo to us and their views will be acknowledged. This is the essence of the committee.

“That is why we are going round to know what are the things agitating the minds of Nigerians.

“We will include these views in our report and these will definitely set the agenda for government and tell government how they want to be governed,’’ he said.

U have spoken the minds of majority of Nigerians. We do not need any unnecessary talk shop created as a diversionary tactic to draw people’s attention away from the gross incompetence of the PDP led FG.

If a member of this kind of committee can not control himself in the public, something have to be done if the committee want to maintain its integrity. Membership of this kind of committee must be tolerance, patience and good listener like Judges does in the open court. If a sitting Governor is being treated like what the nation reported, what do we expect will happen to an ordinary citizen that may want to make presentation before the committee. What I cherish most in the Military is disciple and self respect, I wonder if this Colonel remember the ethic of his profession or may be he has jettison the military ethic and now pick up that of Nigeria politician which have not respect for anybody. Some of them will talk to His Excellency, the President as if they are talking to a school boy. His Excellency, should also note that as Governor of Edo State, He is a symbol of State and not a Labour Leader again, even though he is still a comrade.

listening Ears

It’s very disturbing that a member of the committee who is supposed to be showpiece of epitome of calmness and decorum behaved otherwise.He should be expunged immediately from the committee,cos,we are not sure he would be able to accomodate the burden of that assignment.

taju

Oshiomhole stated that after 53 yrs, Nigerians are still talking of tribe and that there is lack of unity, but did not see that as enough reason for Nigerians to come together and discuss their future.